Changes in a Team
by MissPoe
Summary: The director saw small changes in the s3 team Kate included as Gibbs' niece watched 3 adults be murdered infront of her.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Changes in a team

Fandom: Navy NCIS

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Summery: Gibbs' niece watched Ziva kill Ari from her hiding place in his basement.

Season: end of season 2, beginning of season 3

Pairing: Abby/Ziva and Gibbs/Kate

**Encounter with the beast**

When Ari carelessly walked into Gibbs' home whilst the agent was at work he was surprised to see a blond fixture on the living room couch. He knew that Special Agent Catlin Todd was staying with Gibbs after her near-death experience. He also knew that everyone else including his half-sister were at NCIS HQ, looking for him. However he was unaware of who the figure was.

Ari decided to approach with caution as he then noticed that the fixture was around the age of sixteen. There was a creek in the floor that he was unaware of, standing still he was slightly afraid to look up. A pair of crystal blue eyes much similar to Gibbs approached and stood arms length away from him.

Most teenagers were afraid when strangers walked into their life with out notice, most were afraid or robbers and terrorists, most were not the same as the current teenager standing in front of the infamous terrorist. Her ability to not run, scream or question in his presence made him smile on the inside, and her ability to look as if she was reading a persons soul though their eyes fascinated him.

Looking over the figure, he noticed that she had no weapon on her and he did not recognize her from any file Ziva had given to him about the people he was likely to interact with. In his mind, he cursed her for that until the girls firm and confident voice broke into his mind.

"My uncle wants to kill you," she stated, "and I didn't leave the door unlocked" the girl mused for a minute. "Fornell is gonna be pissed because you are not in his custody no more" she added.

"Since you know who I am, who are you?" he asked, putting the gun on the table to his right as she moved back to sit down. He waited for a response that never came as her gaze became fixated on the screen and his presence became oblivious to her.

Sitting down on the couch next to her, he begun to wonder who she was. Then it struck him; Jethro had a niece whose parents recently murdered in front of her and there was no other relative to take her in, her name was Melinda and she was from California, more specifically; New Port. He was silently glad Ziva was his sister, as no one else knew of the adolescent's existence.

"Can you cook? I am hungry and I have homework that's due in on Monday," she told him as she rose and turned the television off after an hour had passed with Ari studying her as though she held the answers to NASA's launch code.

"What would you like?" he asked, realizing that she was not a danger to him. Looking at her as she walked into the other room, he cursed American's for their ability to trust.

"Anything that you can't kill me with," Melinda noted, pulling out pens as she laid her work down on the counter near the stove and hoped onto the counter.

As he finished the task under her watchful gaze, she asked; "You know how to perform an autopsy? I'm learning in class but I already know how. The stupid teacher yelled at me for it" she mumbled the last part, drawing arrows from the human diagram of a dead person that was on her worksheet.

An hour later, Ari heard the front door open and Gibbs call out for the teenager who was currently gagged and tied-up in the cupboard in the basement. He did not want to hurt the girl but the best way to leave her unscathed was out of sight. Furthermore, Ari did not expect to see his sister at the corner of his eye in his last moments on earth.

**The aftermath: days later**

Jenny remembered that Melinda spoke to her for a brief moment after Ari's body was shipped away and Ziva was gone. The quiet girl admitted that she saw his death, insisted that Gibbs shot Ari even though she knew it was a lie, she insisted that Ari never hurt her, but the conversation was short lived as Tony entered the room. That was the last time the child spoke.

Gibbs was aware or this and was still cursing Ari's dead form. He was unsure of what the FBI former-mole had done to her as the teen refused to talk and function in daily life.

When Kate had moved her last box into his place in order to help him with Melinda and since her lease was ending, the former marine noticed that Melinda became more drawn when Tony mentioned Ari's corpse and the fact that Ziva was gone.

**The aftermath: a month later **

"Ziva?" Abby questioned in a hard tone as McGee told her that the Israeli was a permanent fixture in the building before the team had come to see her in the lab.

"Abby" she acknowledged back with a nod.

Gibbs begun to question the Goth about the new case, but broke off after fifteen minutes when he saw Melinda rush threw the lab and into Ziva's arms with Kate, Ducky, Jimmy and the director not far behind. Whispering comforting words in Hebrew into the teen's ear, Ziva let the girl hug her without any resistance on her part.

"Sorry, I accidentally let is slip down in autopsy when she was with me that Ziva was working with us and was currently in the building," the old man said as Kate walked into the room with Jimmy in tow.

"I was just glad that she remembered to take off the scrubs as she ran past these ladies with a hell of a lot of speed" Jimmy mused out loud. Kate gave him a smile after she noticed his panicked look. She knew the assistant was afraid of their boss and did not want to worry him more than was necessary.

A couple of minutes later Tony's voice rang above with small talk amongst the agents,

"So Ziva is the key to getting Mel to talk, huh?" Tony mused, earning a slap to the back of the head from his boss.

"Agent DiNozzo, please keep the obvious question to yourself and as for you agent Gibbs," she waited for the dramatic pause to take affect before the director continued; "I told you that a woman at her age should not be able to watch a live autopsy or help out with an ongoing case. Is that understood? Okay" Jenney added, then turned on her heal and walking out.

"But the kid likes autopsy" Tony whined as the elevator doors closed, "it makes her happy" he added gaining a roll of the eyes from McGee. "McGee, who killed this man?" Tony asked, getting back on track.

Whilst in the mist of answering questions, Abby could not help but notice that Ziva had grown on the team like a fungus without her knowledge.

Jenny could see the small changes in the team…

Should I continue??


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own nothing… (again)

Firstly I want to thank "meherm" for the enthusiastic review as well as "skyefire" and "Detective Caz" who subscribed to my story.

**The first change**

The Director noticed that the first change in the team begun a few days after Officer David's arrival. At first she didn't give it much thought as Cynthia was distracting her at the time, so it wasn't till later that night that she analyzed the events over a glass of whisky.

The day had begun like a normal office day, well for her at least. When she looked around at the agents below her from her position on the railing, she took a deep breath and counted from one to twenty.

Seeing, as she needed a break, her assistant had partially ordered _her _to take a couple of deep breaths in a place that calmed her. That was how she ended up outside of MTAC looking over the agents, they calmed her because she knew that all of the people in the building had her back at the end of every day, and the agents below were glad she was in charge because she was making necessary changes that would benefit them all.

Looking down she notice that she could see Melinda walking through a cubicle behind Kate. Even though the girl had turned eighteen five days ago, she had offered her a job at handing out mail and running minor errands so both she and Gibbs could watch over her. The teen had begun to show more life every day as she walked into the rooms throughout the building and she was grateful despite knowing that at night the girl still had trouble sleeping with flashes of her parents murder as well as Ari's flash through her mind.

That's when she noticed a small change. It wasn't just the fact that the blond had begun to open up, no, it was that it seemed as though she was looking for something subtitle to happen amongst the team. The way she glanced back and forth between all the agents made her look more closely.

As she squinted to see the blonde's face a little better, Cynthia came towards her and said; "Madam Director-"

Below a small outbreak erupted as Tony threw a stress ball at Kate's head, which just missed and hit Melinda on the side of her head instead as she finished explaining to an agent about a scene between two girls from the mail room. As the ball hit the side of her head Kate, Tony, McGee and Ziva all shot up from their seats.

"Please Cynthia, just call me Jenny" she interrupted, deciding that once the blond stood up from the ground, all was okay. Well Tony wouldn't be okay but Melinda was fine. "It makes me feel less like an uptight boss and more like a human being" she added after tearing her gaze away from the scene below to look at her assistant for a brief moment before returning her gaze.

"Lt. Cmdr. Coleman is on line two in your office" Cynthia read off from her PDA after smirking after hearing a shriek come from Tony as he tried to move rapidly away from Ziva who was holding the stapler in a threatening way. Hearing the Director chuckle at the agents behavior and hearing both Kate and McGee cheer Ziva on whilst Melinda tried to assure the Israeli that she was okay, she continued; "… and I told Special Agent Reeves that you would contact him once you spoke with his advisor" she paused after hearing a loud thump of Tony falling over, only to begin again when Jenny faced her, "… through MTAC which reminds me -you have that meeting in approximately two hours" she raddled off the list coming from her PDA.

Giving her assistant a nod she turned her back on the progressing scene beneath her as she realized she shouldn't interfere. Especially when she knew that Ziva could handle the situation.

That was the first time she noticed Melinda's odd behavior. The second time was when she walked into her office with two Caf-Pow's in her hand and shoved one into her hands and then sat down across from her at the conference table.

"Anything I can do for you?" she asked with a curios glance before getting up to close then door on her smiling assistant.

"Yup" was all the girl said before flipping idly through a file not even taking anything in before closing it and stirring at her boss.

"Miss Benz, can you get to the point. I don't have time for this," she said in a harsh tone, despite wanting to be gentler.

Deciding that the innocent look wasn't going to work and she was most likely to get into trouble sooner or later, she pulled out an envelope from her pocket and handed it to her boss. Looking at the envelope, the Director noticed that her name and work address were printed boldly on one side whilst on the other was the address of the teenagers school of which she had just graduated from.

"Mel?" she asked, carefully this time. Noticing the girl was draw into her self she opened the envelop and read the condense. After that she said aloud; "Its not bad news, just a bunch of your marks that your uncle has already seen and another letter saying that a collage in California that you applied to has accepted you to do a course of which you have completed the first area of study out of the three areas" she explained.

"McKay" the girl shrugged getting to her feet, "I better go down to Abby now seeing as she asked for me about an hour ago to discuss something with me"

"Sounds important" she mused, walking the girl towards the elevator.

"Not really, Kate said she wants to ask me a few questions abut Ziva seeing as though she didn't have the answers Abby wanted" she told her without much expression on her face, "but Kate said most of the time they talked she was just telling her that Uncle Jethro was interested in her and that living with us was a good idea because all they have to do now is get married" she finished as the elevator doors closed before Jenney could say a thing.

Looking over the events of the day, Jenney pored herself a glass of whisky and frowned. She knew that she had no chance with Gibbs anymore but she was still a bit hurt that their relationship was no longer an option despite not hearing it directly from the source or seeing them with her own eyes.

Taking a large gulp, she cringed at the taste, but added more to the glass even though there was still some liquid in it. She also mused over what information that the scientist could possibly want concerning Ziva but she had no clues and nothing really came to her mind.

Drowning the rest of the glass, she put both the glass and bottle on the desk of her office and collected her jacket before calling her driver in order to go home.


End file.
